One of the most physically demanding and time-consuming chores on a farming operation is the baling, loading and hauling of bales of hay. This is especially true for smaller sized family farms where the number of available workers may be limited. After a field has been baled, numerous bales of hay are dispersed throughout the field to be loaded and hauled to a desired destination. Typically, two vehicles are required to transport a load of hay bales, one vehicle having a lift for picking up a bale and loading the bale onto a second vehicle such as a trailer bed for hauling the bales after the bales are loaded. However, using multiple vehicles for a single task is not an efficient allocation of resources, and is impractical for a single person to perform.
Many attempts have been made in the field of bale hauling machinery to provide a combined lifter and carrier for loading and transporting cylindrical bales. However, these attempts have only resulted in exceedingly large, heavy machinery with complex, inelegant loading apparatus that are prohibitively expensive for a smaller farming operation or too large to haul behind a simple passenger vehicle such as a pickup truck. Other attempts have resulted in impractical designs that are exceedingly under-engineered to manipulate multiple larger bales weighing on the order of 1200 to 2000 pounds each. Thus, there lies a need for a bale manipulating and hauling apparatus that is simple and elegant in design so as not to be too large or too expensive for an individual farmer and that may be convenicntly and safely transported with a standard passenger towing vehicle on public roads and highways, and yet that is further sturdily engineered to be capable of easily loading and transporting multiple larger sized bales.